The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to
issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is
based solely upon the information presented in your correspondence.

Dear Ms. Wickham:

I have received your letter of June 6 in which you sought an
interpretation concerning the Freedom of Information Law.

According to your letter, you "wrote to Assemblyman Paul D.
Tonko requesting certain correspondence from residents of the Town
of Rotterdam opposing a proposed subdivision..." The Assembly's
Records Access Officer, Sharon Walsh, denied the request, citing
the Freedom of Information Law and Assembly rules. In view of the
denial, you indicated that you "find it amazing that the
legislators who would open and make accessible all local government
records would conveniently exempt themselves from the same openness
to records."

In this regard, I offer the following comments.

Section 88 of the Freedom of Information Law deals with rights
of access to records of the State Legislature. It is noted that
the structure of that provision differs from that of §87 of the
Freedom of Information Law, which pertains to agencies of state and
local government generally. In brief, as the Freedom of
Information Law applies to agencies, that statute is based upon a
presumption of access. Stated differently, all records of an
agency are available, except to the extent that records or portions
thereof fall within one or more grounds for denial appearing in
§87(2)(a) through (i) of the Law. As the Law applies to the State
Legislature, §88(2) and (3) include reference to certain categories
of records that must be disclosed. Therefore, unless records of
the Legislature fall within one or more of those categories of
accessible records, there is no obligation to disclose. From my
perspective, the kinds of records that you requested would not fall
within the categories of records that must be disclosed by the
State Legislature. Consequently, as a matter of law, the denial
appears to have been appropriate.

Since reference was made to Rule VIII of the Assembly in the
response to your request, I point out that Rule VIII deals with
public access to Assembly records and that §1 states that:

"It is the intent of the Assembly that central
administrative records maintained by the
Assembly be governed by the same presumption
of disclosure which governs access to
executive agency records, with similar
enumerated exceptions."

As such, the Assembly, by rule, has chosen to disclose or withhold
its records based on standards similar to those applicable to state
and local government agencies.

Section 2(2) of the rules pertains to to the ability to
withhold records when disclosure would constitute "an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy". An example of an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy appearing in the ensuing provisions
involves the disclosure of "names, addresses, numbers or other
personal identifying details of telephone communications or mail
correspondence made by or to Members of the Assembly or employees
thereof."

Lastly, in my opinion, if the same kinds of records are
transmitted to a state or local agency, the result would be the
same under provisions of the Freedom of Information Law applicable
to those agencies. As suggested earlier, not all agency records
are accessible, and one of the grounds for denial, §87(2)(b),
pertains to unwarranted invasions of personal privacy. In my view,
if members of the public wrote to you, the Town Supervisor or the
Town Board to express their sentiments, pro or con, regarding a
proposed subdivision, as in the case of the State Legislature, you
would have the ability to protect the privacy of your constituents.

I hope that the foregoing serves to enhance your understanding
of the Freedom of Information Law and that I have been of
assistance.